GENESEO — At last night’s Geneseo Town Board meeting at Long Point Park, Conesus Lake resident Linda Unger told Board Members, Conesus Lake Association representatives and Conesus Lake Watershed representatives about a mass of black muck floating in the water in front of her house.
Unger and her sister, who lives a few houses down from Unger, both said the black muck smells like raw sewage, making swimming or being outside in general unbearable.
Unger said she and her sister are concerned because they get their drinking water from the lake.
Unger’s sister said her husband rakes the muck every day and disposes it in a composter, which she said is very physically taxing.
Watershed representative Kathy Higgins told Unger and her sister she’d be more than happy to come look at the muck.
“One thing about this year is that we had a very warm winter,” Higgins said. “The lake never froze. Right now the lake levels are lower than they have been other summers because we’ve had very little rainfall. We are getting some more, and hopefully we’ll get even more. That should help your issue. The black muck that you’re experiencing is more than likely just a breaking down of biological products and it may be the milfoil, along with other things. It smells like sewage because it’s breaking down.”
Higgins said the intake for the water supply comes from very deep and far enough in the middle of the lake that they aren’t effected by shoreline issues.